Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Heritage and its History

“Why do you think it a matter for jest?” said his father. “Poverty is a test few people can stand. You have no idea what it means. Your life is easier than most.”

“It is the first time he has told us,” said Ralph. “How did he find it out?”

“Hamish does not have to listen to these warnings,” said Fanny.

“My Hamish! Ought he to hear them?” said Rhoda, with a glance at Ralph. “No, his mother will not say it.”

“He is in no need of them,” said Simon. “His future is different.”

“The future that was yours, sir,” said Hamish. “There was a displacement of the line. I should not have existed.”

“Are you glad that you do?”

“I suppose I am. It is a difficult question to answer.”

“I should not have thought it. You do not seem to find it so. The answer is the one you give.”

“We are all glad,” said Fanny.

“My sister! I know you are,” said Rhoda. “How glad I am of all your children!”

“Well, I hope you will remain so. I hear some more of them.”

“The nurse is here with the little ones, my lady,” said Deakin. “They have come to wish Sir Edwin many happy returns.”

The guests gave no sign of this or any purpose, as they stood within the door. Claud remained by his nurse, and Emma showed a tendency to vague advance.

“Many happy returns of the day, Great-Uncle,” said Julia.

“No,” said Emma.

Claud made no response.

“You know it is his birthday.”

“Not birthday,” said Claud, looking at Sir Edwin, as though something in him precluded such an occasion.

“Poor Uncle Edwin!” said Emma.

“Would you like to live for nearly ninety years?” said their uncle.

“Oh, yes,” said Claud.

“But you think I should die, now I have lived for so long?”

“Not die!” said Emma, with emotion.

“Ah, what a stage!” said Rhoda. “How I remember Hamish in it!”

“Dear little girl!” said Emma, in agreement.

“You are not behaving very nicely,” said Julia.

“But have it,” said Emma, looking at the table and alluding to a system of rewards for doing so.

Claud’s eyes followed hers.

“Well, choose something and say goodbye,” said Simon.

The guests obeyed the first injunction, passed over the second, and went to the door.

“There will be demands on you in the future, Simon,” said Sir Edwin.

“I hope Graham will be off my hands, before Claud comes on to them. The gap in years should help us.”

“The workhouse may also benefit,” said Graham. “I may be dead before the date of Claud’s admittance.”

“I forbid any more of that talk,” said Simon. “It is becoming a performance. And as such it should entertain.”

“You must keep your own rule, Simon,” said Julia.

“I am a law to myself. What do you think is my place in the family? The subject was mine, and this travestying of it is senseless. Graham is too old for it.”

“For the subject of our final stage?” said Naomi. “We can never get beyond it.”

“Have you any alternative ideas for your sons’ future, Simon?” said Sir Edwin.

“They will go to Oxford. We have cut out the expense of a public school to ensure it. And some sort of self-support should result from it. Must result, I should say.”

“To keep the climax at bay,” said Ralph.

“Did you hear what I said?” said his father. “Will this brilliance be put to any purpose, besides hounding one point to death? You cannot afford to waste your talents. There can only be one end to it. And I do not want a boyish joke made out of that. It is a poor sense of humour that must be exercised on family subjects. If it has no general use, it is worth nothing.”

“The workhouse is at once granted and grudged its place in the family,” said Naomi.

“Edwin, it is good to see you at the head of your table,” said Julia. “With Hamish at your side, ready to take your place. If my Hamish could see it, he would be content for his son to yield to yours.”

“It is the kinder to say it, that we may doubt its truth. And we should not lay too much stress on being followed by a son. It is no man’s right.”

“That is how my father feels,” said Hamish to Naomi. “I have done little for him by being in his life. If it were not for my mother, I should feel I had no place in it. And I sometimes think she has hardly had what is her due.”

“He was an old man when you were born. It was late to make the change.”

“He is not old now, except in years. His heart and feelings are alive. And they are fixed on his brother, as they have always been. It is a strange life story. It is for us all a strange, difficult thing.”

“We hardly have a place in our father’s life. Our empty places are in the home and the life that once were his. It is almost true to say that he does not live.”

“Your place is here, always empty to me, always yours. I hope it will not wait too long.”

“What are you talking about so gravely?” said Simon.

“About our different homes,” said Naomi. “I daresay we should have come to the final one in time.”

“Have you a great feeling for your home, Hamish?”

“Not as great as you have, sir. It has not been mine for as long. I have a sense of being an after-thought.”

“You will lose the feeling. You should never have had it. I do not know why you have.”

“It is no place for me alone. Or even for my mother and me. It seems to be empty, bereft of something, waiting for someone.”

“You talk as if you were not a boy, and had never been one.”

“My Hamish, my son!” said Rhoda. “He has been more for his mother’s sake.”

“Do you ever imagine your descendants here, Cousin Simon? You must once have had the picture in your mind.”

“I have lost it. I have left my home. I do not look back or think of it. I move forward like any other man.”

“Our own home has an unsettled feeling,” said Ralph. “It can be seen as a halfway house.”

“You can hardly feel that,” said Fanny. “It is the only home you have known.”

“The ones that come before and after seem to have more claim.”

“I must thank you all for coming to honour my birthday,” said Sir Edwin. “I am old to make a speech, but I feel and acknowledge the honour. I have the guests I should have chosen, my brother’s family. I have been in my place very long. It is soon to know me no more. I thank you who have helped me in it.”

“It will always be empty to us, Edwin,” said Julia. “Hamish will fill another. And that in its turn will be empty, until memories die.”

“What is wrong about lofty words,” said Walter, “is that other people have said them. And when I think of some myself, the moment is past.”

“Do we really think of them?” said Graham. “Or do we just feel the impulse? We should not enjoy it so much, if the effort was involved.”

“I am ashamed of being young at these moments,” said Naomi. “No one can speak greatly except from experience.”

“Would you not be ashamed of being as old as Uncle Edwin?” said Ralph, in an undertone. “Of being so soon to die? It seems somehow humbling.”

“Of what should she be ashamed?” said Simon. “Speak so that we can hear you.”

“I heard him,” said Sir Edwin. “It is shameful to be soon to die. Well, I shall not see the future, and I see a shorter past. The place has its lowliness.”

“Did you say that, Ralph?”

“No, not really, sir. I asked a question.”

“How do you think you chose your time?”

“I did not mean to be heard.”

“Have you said before, at the table of someone in old age, that you would be ashamed of being so?”